California Drought

[NoTrespassing]

I thought about posting this in the appropriate regional forum but it seems pretty dead there. I've been watching news on the California drought for the past few years. To say it's been bad is an understatement. Northern California seems to be out of the woods but Southern California is still in extreme drought as of this posting. Back on December 15, 2016 NOAA released a report predicting no relief for Southern California this winter. Now it seems they're going to get some albeit in the form of flooding in some areas. Washington state, Oregon, and Northern California is getting hammered with rain and snow right now and it's predicted to last into Thursday.

Are there any members or friends or family members affected by this flooding? Several rivers are predicted to breech major flood stage.

The rain is supposed to turn to snow in upper elevations soon and hopefully will help in drought recovery this summer.

Kevin

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

Snow pack in the Sierra is what they need, an it sounds like they are getting some. There's a lot of make-up to be done, though. It will take years of good winters before they are in good shape.

The water politics in California are staggeringly stupid. There is no reason they should not have enough reserves to see them through a 7 year drought.

 

[bcp]

Something I've never seen mentioned in CA or other coastal places is the use of a parallel water system for salt water or non-potable water for toilets, etc. in which quality wouldn't matter much, if any.

Use potable fresh water only where needed.

Bruce

 

[TomSeller]

Something I've never seen mentioned in CA or other coastal places is the use of a parallel water system for salt water or non-potable water for toilets, etc. in which quality wouldn't matter much, if any.

Use potable fresh water only where needed.

Bruce

What does salt water do to a septic tank if used in toilets? Good or bad?

 

[roadhunter]

I was just watching the weather. Most of California was in a flood warning shade on the map from the upcoming storm. Some of the same areas that are also in extreme drought. Only in California can a place be in a flood and a drought at the same time.

 

[roadhunter]

Something I've never seen mentioned in CA or other coastal places is the use of a parallel water system for salt water or non-potable water for toilets, etc. in which quality wouldn't matter much, if any.

Use potable fresh water only where needed.

Bruce

Great idea. Somewhat ironic that California has a massive desalination plant which turns the water into drinkable quality so it can be used to flush a toilet.

 

[newbury]

What does salt water do to a septic tank if used in toilets? Good or bad?

I put a solution of salty water in my toilet 3 to 5 times a day. Except times like last month when I was having trouble with a leak in our water line and turned the water off. Then I was putting the solution out on the lawn

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

Something I've never seen mentioned in CA or other coastal places is the use of a parallel water system for salt water or non-potable water for toilets, etc. in which quality wouldn't matter much, if any.

Use potable fresh water only where needed.

Bruce

I used to live there. Southern California does use a lot of recycled water in commercial buildings. It's sanitary, but not pretty. It's kind of greyish looking, but for flushing toilets, who cares?

 

[TomSeller]

I put a solution of salty water in my toilet 3 to 5 times a day. Except times like last month when I was having trouble with a leak in our water line and turned the water off. Then I was putting the solution out on the lawn

. Good one! Okay, what does SEAwater do to a septic tank if used to flush?

 

[beowulf]

California is and will remain in a drought. California is incapable of solving its water issues. It has been raining for days - we have had about 8 inches in the last two weeks or so - and it is now raining heavily and will continue for several days - but it is going to into the ocean. Or rather, the water in the lakes which is being stored behind dams is now being released to the ocean so that there is room for the rain water pouring into the streams and flowing into the lakes. Agriculture interests have been trying to have more dams built for decades but it won't happen - all political. And it takes 10 plus years to get a dam approved and built and they have not even started. If there was sufficient water storage some of the problem could be alleviated.

But this is California - a state that is too big, partly a desert, and with too many diverse and competing interests. It is the cities vs the rural, north vs south, the farmers vs the environmentalists (Endangered Species Act). Some crops take an unbelievable amount of water to produce (one gallon for one almond, 20 gallons for one ounce of asparagus, 100 gallons per ounce of beef - or so it is reported). And environmentalists want to save every bug and fish that has ever been seen anywhere - or so it is reported. Both sides have detractors and supporters.

Many farmers have had to decide which of their fields or crops they will have to forget about. The artificial turf business is booming. Subsidies are given to homeowners who tear out their grass and put in xeriscape landscaping. The state's economy - which has a huge ag base has taken a multi-billion dollar hit.

There are mandatory reductions in most municipalities. And we all do all we can to save water. In the summer, we and most of our friends, family, and so on, really do try to save water - buckets in the shower to catch water for other uses and so on. But then it was reported that the mayor's LA resident used 2100 gallons a day for a while - so there's that. And we also stand around in amazement on the inability, or unwillingness, of the state to deal with it in meaningful ways - and its complicated by a mix of state and federal law and regulations.

I don't think LA residents get it yet - about how this water issue will move their way. But LA is in a desert - and tho it has been made green with water and lawns, that may all change.

There have been proposals to buy and pipe water from Canada and the Eastern US (where it floods) to California which, even if feasible, would require somewhere to store it.

I don't know what will happen, but I do know that the rain we get goes to the ocean.

 

[oosik]

I've been in the Environmental Health field for almost 50 years now and have not seen any reports/studies on seawater/septic tank problems. Maybe because it would require a dual supply system and added expense. Maybe because the highest pathogenic load from a house is not the toilet but the shower and clothes washing machine. I don't think the hot water tank nor clothes washing machine are set up to handle seawater.

Trying to set up a multiple supply system for non-potable/potable home use would be a nightmare of problems.

 

[RNeumann]

Biggest use of water at a residence is the yard....by far! The cost of desal is too high right now to be feasible. However the technology with waste water is to the point many municipalities are running purple pipe "recycled" water for irrigation. This is where the dual piping efforts have gone.

Back to OP- yes the flooding is real and affecting folks. We have family in Truckee but they are high enough to be out of the way. The problem is the storm was so warm it rained in all but the highest spots in the sierras- including the ski resorts. When that happened it began to wash the rain AND melted snow down- which is want occurred today. Highway 80 at Donner Pass (the Donner Party Donner Pass) just had a major mud slide as well.

 

[ultrarunner]

Here in Oakland we average 80 gallons per day for a 2400 square foot home on 6 acres...

Gave up watering the lawns and that saves 200 gallons per day when judicious hand watering used in the summer...

The water agencies are crying for increased rates to make up for conservation... the cost overhead and fixed costs vary little in regards to flow...

Can't seem to win on this...

The bill for 300 gallons per day is about $280 for 60 days which includes sewer... figure about $5 a day and you would be in the ballpark.

New dams are not going in and old ones taken out... many say people will just need to learn to use less... very little effort to increase capacity.

Farmers being restricted is a real issue... many have drawn on river water were told to stop... even with deeded water rights going back more than a 100 years.

Things around the ranch were sloppy... with lots of little streams popping up as it rained... as long as the rain is moderated it should not be too bad... it's when it keeps pounding without let up that the hills start to slide and the water ways overflow.

 

[EddieWalker]

CA has the resources and ability to solve it's water issues if they actually addressed the problem. Unfortunately, they have a proven history of using a problem to increase taxes and then use that tax money for social programs instead of what it was raised for. Then complain that they need more money to fix the water problem and raise taxes again. They do the same thing with the roads, schools and prisons.

 

[beowulf]

CA has the resources and ability to solve it's water issues if they actually addressed the problem.

I agree. I have heard politics defined as the art of distributing limited resources and here in California there are two many competing interests for those resources which are incompatible. The politics here are a mess - the decisions they make are just maddening at times.

This rain will help with some issues - cattle grazing for example, but long term solutions require storage and realistic and fair allocation strategies which we don't have. And the rain won't help with the estimated 120 million trees that have died. I can look out my back door up to a mountain ridge and see dead trees where once we had a forest.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

This current string of storms has been very warm, and that is melting the Cascade and Sierra snow pack that has accumulated over the past month or so. That has led to flooding (I just posted some pictures of very high water levels in the Feather River Canyon on the Rural Living thread). Since the snow pack serves as water storage for the summer months, and the reservoirs can't hold enough to meet the agricultural and environmental demands placed upon them by the state's Byzantine management practices, we could easily lapse back into drought, even in the northern counties. Regardless, one plentiful winter such as the one we are having won't recharge the ground water being depleted by ever more numerous and deeper wells in the Central Valley. It's so bad there that the aquifers are collapsing in some areas and will never hold water again. A couple years ago the state water management board got some teeth to start forcing localities to develop management plans or have control moved to the state level, but progress there is very slow and fraught with legal challenges that will drag down any effort to change. All of the problems with too little water are man made, and it will be man that suffers one way or another if a way can't be found to stay within Mother Nature's imposed water allocation.

Personally, my well seems to be drawing from an aquifer that is independent of Lake Oroville's level (I live on the side of the canyon above the lake) and I chose plants for the landscaping that use little water during the hot summer months. So far I've had all the water I needed, even in the most recent drought years. Most of the ground here slopes pretty steeply into the canyon so there's no chance of flooding, but the fire lines that were dozed into the property during the Saddle Fire last summer are suffering some erosion. I'd hoped to get those areas planted before the rains started, but promises of a tractor and disc never materialized.

 

[dickfoster]

Snow pack in the Sierra is what they need, an it sounds like they are getting some. There's a lot of make-up to be done, though. It will take years of good winters before they are in good shape.

The water politics in California are staggeringly stupid. There is no reason they should not have enough reserves to see them through a 7 year drought.

Since I've lived here, from 1975, I've seen several drought cycles but each time they still act as if it were something totally new. It seems to me we have the wrong kind of people in gubberment. Maybe it's time ditch the stupid lawyers and get some engineering and scientist types into goverment. People who know how to solve problems instead of making them worse in order to suit their own interests.

 

[California]

All (well most) true. A couple more more factors presently:

California water law goes back to the original stakeholders who put their flunkies in the legislature and wrote water law to their benefit: first the mining corporations who needed all the scarce water they could get to run their operations, and soon after the flatland farmers who practiced flood irrigation for rice and then almonds, among other things. Both interests wrote 'grandfather' legislation that allowed them all the water they traditionally received. Any later land development had to buy water rights from them. This legal basis is far out of sync with modern needs.

California is unusual in that no legislation has ever succeeded to monitor and control groundwater. The aquifers that stored water is pumped from in summer ( it never rains here all summer, the rainlesss season is practically Easter to Thanksgiving) can be pumped dry causing major subsidence of land levels, and nobody cares. Attempts to monitor and control this are overwhelmed by existing traditional water users who won't stop pumping.

Much of the water is provided at federally subsidized low price (thanks, taxpayers elsewhere!) for large scale commercial ag to grow subsidized rice and cotton for subsidized-price-control export (thanks taxpayers) to countries where this flood of imports undercuts their local farmers ability to make a profit. This is raw political power applied to enriching some of the largest corporations - since their elected representatives drafted the federal subsidy laws to their benefit. (Gasohol encouraging corn in the Midwest represents a similar market distortion).

And then recent events: the wholesale buying of farms for their underground water rights. Davis, just west of Sacramento and home of the ag college, now has to buy water from a corporation that bought the large corporate farm over their local aquifer. City of Davis should have bought that land, now its too late.

Large multinationals are, in the midst of drought, buying ag land and planting water-intensive almonds because the presence of the almonds guarantees the flood-irrigation water rights they got along with the land. I think Nestle, possibly the largest seller of bottled water worldwide, is part of this.

Basically passing more laws to unravel this mess is politically impossible. The largest stakeholders with the greatest financial interests have always been in the driver's seat.

One last story that illustrates why more dams aren't built: Auburn Dam above Sacramento never went forward because it was not economically rational. All the water that could be diverted there was already owned by existing interests, it wouldn't create any new water. Hydro power ditto, there isn't any spare water to put through turbines so zero hydroelectric potential. Flood control in the American River drainage is already sufficient, no benefit there. So what looked like an obvious dam site never got its dam.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

. Good one! Okay, what does SEAwater do to a septic tank if used to flush?

Probably nothing to an anaerobic septic system.